Pakistan Military Wages Assault Against Militants

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Ending years of hesitation, Pakistan’s military on Sunday said it was launching a major military operation against the Pakistani Taliban and allied foreign militants at their main base in the tribal belt along the Afghan border.

The assault on North Waziristan, a lawless district that heavily armed militants have used as a sanctuary to stage attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, comes one week after an audacious Taliban assault on the country’s busiest airport, in Karachi, left at least 36 people dead.

But a military campaign was anticipated before the Karachi attack, and tens of thousands of residents have fled North Waziristan while the government has evacuated the families of officials posted to the area.

In a prelude to the announced offensive, Pakistani fighter jets pounded suspected militant hide-outs in North Waziristan early Sunday. The military said in a statement that it had killed 105 militants, mostly from Uzbekistan, but it was not possible to independently confirm the toll because Waziristan is inaccessible to most journalists.

Hours later, the military announced the start of a “comprehensive operation” against the Taliban on Sunday night. Militants in North Waziristan had “waged a war against the State of Pakistan,” the statement said, “disrupting our national life in all its dimensions.”

Yet the military offered no details about how many troops were involved or how the operation would be carried out.

Local news media reported that the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, would address the lower house of Parliament on Monday to discuss the operation.

At least two opposition parties said they would support the drive, and there was a broad sentiment of support for the military on television and on social media.

“The time has come to reclaim our country,” Yasser Latif Hamdani, a lawyer from Lahore, wrote on Twitter.

Security officials in the major cities said they were bracing for possible Taliban reprisals, particularly in the form of suicide bombings, and announced increased security measures across the country.

The initial focus, though, is likely to be in the tribal belt, a notoriously treacherous area that has frustrated conventional armies since the days of the British Raj. In recent years only American drone strikes managed to successfully penetrate the militant presence in North Waziristan, although critics said they had come at a cost of civilian casualties and the inflaming of anti-American opinion across Pakistan.

Attempts by the Pakistani military to restrict the Taliban had limited success, either because the militants managed to flee into adjoining areas, or because the army was adhering to its much-criticized policy of siding with one militant group against another.

In the days after the Karachi assault, military officials hinted that plans were underway for a major operation in the northwestern tribal area. And last week, American drones attacked militant targets twice in the region after an almost six-month lull during which Pakistani officials tried and failed to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban.

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Some attempted to flee Miram Shah the main town in North Waziristan on Saturday, ahead of the offensive.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images

The military said it had been “tasked to eliminate these terrorists regardless of hue and color, along with their sanctuaries.”

Although an operation in North Waziristan is a longstanding demand of American officials, it also carries significant strategic and political risks for Pakistani political and military leaders.

Mr. Sharif worries that Taliban reprisals could focus on Punjab, the country’s wealthiest province and his electoral base. He tried to avoid a military campaign by initiating peace talks with the Taliban in February, but that initiative effectively collapsed amid Taliban infighting and continued suicide bombings in Pakistan’s major cities that were apparently the work of Taliban splinter groups.

The military, at the same time, intends to disable the Taliban while not upsetting its relationship with other groups — a delicate demand in a fight that is likely to be waged, at least in its early stages, with artillery salvos and fighter jet attacks.

Pakistani intelligence has traditionally had a close relationship with the Haqqani network, a powerful militant group based in North Waziristan that has close ties to both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, and which has generally avoided attacking the army. Haqqani militants were believed to have held Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for much of his five years in captivity, until his release on May 31 in exchange for five Taliban commanders.

Initial indications from the military were that it would focus its firepower on the other jihadis, particularly Uzbeks affiliated with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which claimed responsibility for the attack on the Karachi airport.

The military said the airstrikes on Sunday morning hit an Uzbek base and seven other targets that were “linked with planning” the Karachi attack.

Among the targets of Sunday’s air attacks was a house where Abdur Rehman, a senior commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was believed to be staying, said the security official in Peshawar. “We don’t know if he was there, but it has been hit,” the official said.

Away from the tribal belt, Pakistanis were bracing for possible reprisals. Army officers were ordered to secure prominent locations in the capital of Islamabad, television channels reported. Security at jails across the country was stepped up.

The police in Karachi, the country’s largest city, said they were on high alert.

Though military operations in the tribal areas, and in areas in the northwest of Pakistan like Swat, have led to an influx of ethnic Pashtuns to Sindh Province, which includes Karachi, the provincial government said it did not have any plan in place to prepare for people fleeing the conflict.

Syed Waqar Mehdi, a special assistant to the Sindh chief minister, said the authorities there were awaiting orders from the federal government. “But,” he added, “we will not accept terrorists entering the province” in the guise of internal refugees.

In the tribal belt, the military announcement was met with widespread trepidation. “The government should have informed us before launching an operation,” Abdul Rehman Wazir, a cloth merchant said by telephone from Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. “We have started packing but we don’t know if we will be able to leave safely.”

Early Sunday, officials estimated that 70,000 residents of North Waziristan had fled into adjoining areas. Afghan officials estimated that 6,000 had crossed into Khost, an Afghan province that borders North Waziristan.

One Taliban member vowed to retaliate after the overnight airstrikes. “We will certainly avenge the killing of both our fighters and innocent civilians,” said the commander, who spoke on the condition of anonymity when reached by telephone because he is not an official Taliban spokesman.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Pakistan Military Wages Assault Against Militants. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe